Anna's expression was completely blank as she descended toward where Rakan should have been. Her face showed neither satisfaction nor regret—just an empty neutrality that was somehow more unsettling than any emotion would have been.
The landscape below her had been fundamentally altered. Where there had once been mountains, forests, and valleys, there was now only a single, massive pathway of absolute destruction. The ground had been scoured clean—not just destroyed but erased down to bedrock that glowed cherry-red with residual heat.
The canyon of devastation stretched for kilometers in a perfectly straight line, steam rising from the superheated stone like the breath of some slumbering god.
'The Crimson Annihilation spell is overpowered,' Anna thought distantly, her mind cataloging the destruction even as her emotions remained strangely muted. 'Even using only a fraction of what Ethan could output... this much damage.'
Her magical reserves were nearly depleted—she'd poured almost everything into that single spell the moment she'd seen Rakan charging toward Ethan. The instant the Beast Monarch had shifted his target from her to her husband, something inside Anna had... shifted.
No hesitation. No second thoughts. Just an overwhelming, all-consuming need to eliminate the threat.
She descended slowly, her boots touching down on ground that was still radiating intense heat. Her enhanced suit and Viltrumite physiology meant the temperature didn't even register—she could walk through the heart of a star without discomfort.
Her eyes, still eerily blank, scanned the end of the destruction pathway.
There... What remained of Rakan, the Beast Monarch and King of Fangs, was barely recognizable as having once been alive.
His massive body was riddled with holes—not clean wounds, but areas where flesh, bone, and essence had simply been deleted by the spell's dimensional-breaking properties.
His arms were gone, severed cleanly at different points along their length. Half of his face was missing, revealing the skull beneath and the eye socket that no longer contained a eye.
His torso had been perforated dozens of times, each hole showing straight through to the scorched ground beneath him. His healing factor was trying desperately to regenerate, but the damage was too extensive, the injuries too fundamental.
It was a miracle—or perhaps a curse—that he was still conscious.
Anna stopped a few meters away, looking down at him with that same blank expression. Then, slowly, she raised her hand. A green magic circle materialized, spinning gently as healing energy began to flow.
Rakan's remaining eye widened in shock and confusion as his wounds began to close. Not completely—Anna wasn't healing him fully, just enough to ensure he wouldn't die in the next few minutes. Flesh regenerated partially, bones reconnected, organs reformed just enough to function.
"W-why..." Rakan managed to force out through his mangled throat, his voice a wet, bubbling horror. "Why... heal...?"
Anna didn't answer immediately. She simply stared at him with those empty eyes.
Then, finally, she spoke. Her voice was soft, almost gentle—which made it infinitely more terrifying. "Because I'm not done with you yet."
Rakan tried to threaten her—old habits die hard, even for dying Monarchs. "The others... will come... you'll be... destroyed... all of you..."
Anna's expression didn't change. For a moment, she just looked at him. Then, slowly, she began to laugh.
It started quiet—a soft chuckle that held no humor whatsoever. Then it grew, building into full laughter that echoed across the devastated landscape.
The sound was wrong somehow, lacking any warmth or joy. It was the laugh of someone who'd found something absurdly, impossibly funny in a very dark way.
"It's a pity," Anna said when her laughter finally subsided, her voice carrying a note of genuine sadness. "It's a pity to be this delusional until the very end."
She crouched down, bringing her face level with Rakan's. Her expression was pitying now—looking at him the way one might look at a dying animal.
"You can't do anything. Even if the others come—if Sillad, Querehsha, even Antares himself shows up—Ethan, Jean, and I will be strong enough to deal with them. You Monarchs never understood what real power looks like. You've been playing king for so long you forgot there are gods above kings."
Her expression began to shift. The blankness faded, replaced by something far more dangerous. Her eyes—which had been empty—suddenly filled with cold, focused fury.
"I thought I could use you to train more," she said, her voice dropping to something barely above a whisper. "Test my limits, learn combat technique, grow stronger through the challenge. That was the plan. A nice, clean fight where everyone benefits."
She stood up slowly, shadows seeming to darken around her despite the bright light from the still-glowing ground. "But then you went after Ethan."
Anna's boot came down on Rakan's chest—not hard enough to break anything, but with enough force to pin him completely. Her expression had transformed from blank to something genuinely terrifying.
"That was your mistake," she continued, her voice taking on a sing-song quality that made it even more disturbing. "You can attack me all day long. Hit me and I don't care. I'll heal, I'll adapt, I'll learn from it. That's training."
Her smile was not sane. "But you tried to hurt Ethan. You charged at my husband with killing intent. You threatened the most important person in my existence."
She raised her foot and brought it down on one of Rakan's partially healed wounds. He screamed—a sound of pure agony that echoed across the domain.
"That's a crime I cannot tolerate."
Anna began systematically stomping on each of his wounds, reopening them, ensuring maximum pain without allowing him to pass out or die.
Rakan's screams were continuous now, his body trying desperately to shut down from shock but unable to because of the healing magic she'd used earlier.
"Stop... STOP... PLEASE..." he begged, all pride and dignity abandoned in the face of absolute agony.
Anna's expression didn't change. She raised her hand, and a complex magic circle appeared—purple and silver, rotating in impossible geometries.
"Transfiguration: Elemental Conversion."
The rocks around them began to glow, their molecular structure shifting and changing. Stone became liquid metal—molten iron, copper, lead—all flowing like water toward Rakan's broken body.
"Open wide," Anna said cheerfully.
Before Rakan could react, the liquid metal was pouring into his wounds, filling his internal cavities, seeping into every gap and hole in his body. The heat was intense enough to boil flesh, and the weight was crushing organs that were already damaged.
Rakan's screams reached new heights of horror.
Anna's foot moved to his jaw, kicking it upward and forcing his mouth shut. The liquid metal that had been entering through his mouth was now trapped inside, heating further, expanding, causing unimaginable pain.
"Don't scream," she said, her voice still in that disturbingly cheerful tone. "It's ugly to hear. Very unpleasant."
She continued the torture methodically, almost clinically. Breaking bones that were trying to heal. Injecting more molten metal. And suddenly freeze the metal, then heating it again. Each new method was more creative than the last.
All the while, she spoke in that same pleasant, conversational tone.
"You shouldn't have thought about hurting Ethan. That was your first mistake. Your second mistake was thinking you could threaten him in front of me. And your third..." She leaned down close to his ear. "...was not dying fast enough when you had the chance."
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of suffering, Anna stood back. She raised both hands, and above her palms, a miniature sun began to form.
"Cruel Sun."
The sphere of solar fury dropped onto Rakan's body.
He couldn't even scream anymore—his jaw was dislocated, his mouth filled with solidified metal, his throat destroyed. All he could do was burn.
The heat was beyond anything he'd experienced in millennia of existence.
As his consciousness began to fade, one final thought crystallized in Rakan's dying mind, 'This woman... she's insane. More insane than Querehsha. More dangerous than any Monarch. And it's all because of... him. Aeon. When I targeted Aeon instead of her... the switch flipped. She became... this.'
His final realization came too late to matter: 'I didn't lose to a warrior. I lost to an insane woman.'
Then even that thought dissolved into ash, and Rakan, Beast Monarch and King of Fangs, ceased to exist.
....
Anna stood over the ashes, her expression still hard and cold.
Then, like a switch had been flipped, her expression transformed. The coldness melted away, replaced by a bright, cheerful smile as she sensed Ethan and Jean approaching.
She turned just as they landed nearby, her entire demeanor shifting from terrifying to adorable in an instant.
"Ethan! Jean!" she called out happily, as if she hadn't just spent the last several minutes torturing an ancient cosmic being to death.
Ethan took in the scene—the ashes, the molten metal cooling on the ground, the lingering heat in the air—and his expression filled with pride.
"Good job, Anna," he said warmly while walking over and pulling her into a tight hug. He kissed her forehead gently. "I'm so proud of you."
Anna melted into the embrace, all traces of her earlier violence vanishing. "Really? You're not upset I went a little... overboard?"
"Overboard?" Ethan chuckled while stroking her hair. "He tried to attack me with killing intent. You responded appropriately. I'd be more concerned if you hadn't reacted."
The truth was, Ethan knew exactly what Anna had become. He'd recognized the signs early on—the yandere tendencies, the obsessive devotion, the switch that flipped when he was threatened.
And he was completely fine with it.
'As long as she doesn't try to hurt me, our family, or our friends, what's the problem?' Ethan thought pragmatically. 'She's loyal, devoted, powerful, and only becomes dangerous to people who threaten what she loves. That's not a flaw—that's a feature.'
Besides, he had a secret he'd never admitted out loud: he actually liked yandere girls. Always had. The devotion, the intensity, the absolute certainty of their love—it appealed to something in his personality. His first love turning into a yandere? That was basically a dream come true, as long as he was the target of her affection rather than her violence.
And it wasn't just Anna. Jean had her own yandere tendencies—more controlled, more subtle, but definitely present.
He'd seen the way her eyes went cold when anyone threatened him, the casual efficiency with which she dealt with problems that might harm their family.
'I'm surrounded by incredibly powerful women who love me to the point of obsession,' Ethan reflected with internal amusement. 'Most guys would be terrified. But I'm glad and I'm living my best life.'
Jean, for her part, wasn't surprised by Anna's torture session at all. She'd seen it coming from a mile away. When Rakan had charged at Ethan, Jean had immediately recognized the shift in Anna's demeanor.
'Yep, there it is,' Jean had thought at the time. 'Someone's about to have a very bad day.'
She floated down beside them, looking at the ashes with clinical interest. "Well, that was thorough. How are we going to extract the core essence now that he's been reduced to ash?"
Anna suddenly froze, her eyes going wide. "Oh no! I forgot we needed that!" She turned to Ethan with panic in her expression. "Can you turn back time? You can do that, right? Please tell me you can fix this!"
Ethan sighed, though he was smiling. "Yes, I can fix it. But next time, maybe remember we need them somewhat intact before you turn them into charcoal?"
"I promise!" Anna said quickly. "From now on, torture first, then you extract the core, then I can finish them off properly!"
"That's my girl," Ethan replied before shaking his head with fond exasperation.
He walked over to where Rakan's ashes lay scattered across the scorched ground. Raising his right hand, Ethan's eyes began to glow with blue-green light—the telltale sign of his Chronokinesis activating.
Green temporal energy swirled around his hand, forming complex patterns that looked like clockwork made from pure time. He pointed at the ashes, and reality began to... rewind.
The ashes rose from the ground, coalescing back into solid form. The burning reversed, heat flowing back into Anna's dissipated spell. Flesh, bone, and organs reformed in reverse order. Within seconds, Rakan existed again—wounded, dying, but physically present.
His remaining eye snapped open in confusion and horror. "What... what happened... how am I...?"
Then an overwhelming force crashed down on him like the weight of a collapsing star. Every muscle in his body locked in place, completely paralyzed. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't even blink without permission.
Ethan's Genesis Telekinesis held him in an unbreakable grip.
Ethan walked forward slowly, his expression casual but his eyes cold. "You know, Rakan, I've got to give you credit. You lasted longer than Tarnak and Yogumunt. That's something."
He stopped directly in front of the paralyzed Monarch. "But in the end, you made the same mistake they did—you thought you were a predator. You thought you were the apex, the top of the food chain, the ultimate hunter."
Ethan's smile was sharp and cutting. "But let me share a little secret with you: true apex predators don't roar and posture and threaten. They don't need to. They just... are. And compared to real cosmic power? Compared to beings who can reshape galaxies on a whim?"
He leaned in close. "You're just a cat with delusions of grandeur."
Rakan tried to respond—to roar, to threaten, to maintain some dignity—but Ethan's telekinesis kept him completely silent.
"Oh, and the fact that you can't even talk back?" Ethan continued with mock sympathy. "That's just sad. Can't even defend your reputation in your final moments. How embarrassing for you."
He placed his hand on Rakan's chest, right over where his core essence resided. "Thanks for the power, though. I'm sure one of my wives will make much better use of it than you ever did."
Rakan's eye widened in terror and pain as he felt his very being begin to unravel. The core of his existence—the fundamental concept of "Beast" and "Fang" that defined him—was being extracted like a tumor being removed.
He wanted to scream. He tried desperately to scream.
But no sound came out.
Finally, Ethan's hand emerged from Rakan's chest holding a glowing orb—crimson and gold, pulsing with predatory power. This was the Beast Monarch's core essence, the source of his authority.
"Got it," Ethan announced cheerfully before standing up and examining the core. "This one's pretty impressive actually. Strong predatory instincts, enhanced physical capabilities, pack coordination abilities... yeah, someone's going to love this."
He opened a portal to his inventory space and tossed the core inside. It vanished with a shimmer of spatial distortion.
Behind him, Rakan's body finally began to crumble to ash again—this time permanently, as the extraction of his core left nothing to sustain his existence.
But Ethan wasn't done. He raised his left hand toward the horizon, and approximately one hundred mana beasts that had been held in telekinetic stasis throughout the battle suddenly lifted into the air. They floated toward him from kilometers away, pulled by invisible forces.
"These ones survived the Genesis power infusion," Ethan said, more to himself than anyone else. "Their bodies adapted rather than breaking down. Interesting."
He twisted his left hand in a complex pattern, and reality split open beside him—not a normal portal, but a fracture in space that revealed the crystalline landscape of the Mirror Dimension. The opening looked like a door made of glass and impossible angles.
With a casual gesture, Ethan tossed all one hundred enhanced beasts through the opening. They vanished into the Mirror Dimension, where they'd be stored for future experimentation.
"What was that about?" Anna asked, confused.
"I'll explain later," Jean said, having watched Ethan's experiment with the Genesis power. "It's complicated, but potentially very useful."
Anna nodded, trusting that Jean would fill her in when they had time. "So, can we go hunt another one now? I'm feeling energized!"
'Of course she is,' Jean thought with amusement. 'She just got to torture someone who threatened Ethan. She's probably on an endorphin high.'
"Of course, we're going for another one now."
Ethan closed the Mirror Dimension portal and turned to Jean with a smile. "Your turn now. Which one do you want to fight? Sillad or Querehsha?"
Jean considered for a moment, "Sillad," she decided. "The Frost Monarch. He's supposed to have mastery over ice and cold, right?"
"Absolute zero temperatures and can freeze people, that sort of thing," Ethan confirmed. "Why him specifically?"
Jean's eyes began to glow with a hint of yellow flame. "Because he'll be a perfect test for the Phoenix Force. I want to understand how much of its power I need to channel to deal with a Monarch-level threat. Fire versus ice—it's almost poetic."
"Classic elemental matchup," Anna agreed. "You'll look amazing kicking his ass, Jean!"
Ethan smiled at his wives' enthusiasm. "Alright, Sillad it is." He glanced around at the devastated domain—half destroyed by Anna's spell, the rest slowly crumbling as its anchor (Rakan) no longer existed. "Let's get out of here before this whole dimension collapses."
He raised his hand, and the familiar red locator rune materialized—the complex symbol that connected to his Genesis Telepathy and allowed him to find Monarchs across dimensional boundaries.
The rune's thin energy line connected to his forehead, and Ethan's consciousness expanded outward, searching for Sillad's distinct energy signature—cold, calculating, sharp as frozen razors.
"Found him," Ethan announced after a few seconds. "His domain is... hmm, that's interesting."
"What?" Jean asked.
"He's not alone in his dimension. There's another presence there—a second Monarch."
Anna's expression sharpened. "Which one?"
"Querehsha," Ethan replied, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "They're together. Looks like they might be planning somthing after my message for them."
"Good," Jean said, her eyes flaring with golden light. "Two for one. More efficient."
Ethan opened a red portal, the other side showing a frozen landscape of impossible beauty and deadly cold. "Ladies, shall we?"
Jean stepped through first, her body already beginning to glow with Phoenix Force. Anna followed right behind her, cracking her knuckles and grinning. Ethan brought up the rear, taking one last look at Rakan's dying domain before stepping through.
The portal sealed shut behind them.
Three seconds later, the entire dimension collapsed into void, erasing the Beast Monarch's realm from existence.
.
.
.
**The Domain of Frost**
The world on the other side of the portal was the absolute opposite of Rakan's savage wilderness.
Sillad's domain was a frozen masterpiece—a realm of eternal winter taken to its artistic extreme.
The sky was a pale blue so light it was almost white, with three moons visible despite it being "day" according to the ambient light. Each moon was a different shade of blue, and they cast overlapping shadows that created complex patterns on the ground below.
The landscape was dominated by massive ice formations—not just frozen water, but crystallized magic that had taken physical form. Spires of ice rose hundreds of meters into the air, each one carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift and change when viewed from different angles. Some formations looked like frozen waterfalls, others like sculptures of ancient beings.
The forest that covered much of the domain wasn't made of normal trees. Instead, crystalline structures grew from the ground—translucent and reflective, each "tree" a unique artwork of frozen beauty. Some had branches that rang like wind chimes when the air moved through them. Others glowed from within with cold blue light, creating an ethereal atmosphere.
The temperature was beyond what normal matter could withstand—somewhere around absolute zero in few areas. The very air had frozen into a fine mist that drifted through the trees like snow.
It was beautiful, deadly, and utterly alien.
And standing in a clearing at the center of this frozen wonderland was Sillad, the Frost Monarch and King of Snow Folk.
Sillad was walking slowly through his crystalline forest, his movements graceful and precise. He appeared almost human at first glance—tall, slender, with features that suggested nobility and intelligence. But closer inspection revealed the differences.
His skin was the pale blue-white of ice. His hair flowed like liquid nitrogen, constantly moving despite no wind. His eyes were solid white—no iris, no pupil, just featureless orbs that seemed to see everything.
He wore robes that appeared to be woven from the idea of "cold" given physical form and fashioned into clothing. Frost patterns constantly formed and dissolved across the fabric, creating ever-changing art.
Suddenly, behind him, a portal of red energy tore open.
Sillad stopped walking. He turned slowly, calmly, as three figures emerged from the portal into his domain.
Ethan Carter, Jean and Anna Carter.
Sillad observed them with his featureless eyes, his expression unreadable but completely composed. If he was surprised or concerned by their appearance, he gave no sign.
"So..." he said, his voice like wind whistling through ice canyons—cold but oddly melodious. "You've finally decided to meet with me."
The complete lack of surprise in his tone caused confusion among his visitors.
Jean's mind immediately went on alert. "You're the Frost Monarch, right? Why are you so calm? You're acting like you were expecting us."
Sillad's lips curved into something that might have been a smile—difficult to tell on his frozen features. "A logical question. Tell me—did you deal with Rakan?"
Jean and Anna's eyes widened slightly at that. How did he know?
But Ethan was already scanning the surrounding area with his enhanced senses, and what he found made him smile—not with amusement, but with predatory interest.
"It seems you prepared quite the welcome for us," Ethan said slowly, his gaze moving across the frozen forest. "Very thorough and Very clever."
Sillad's smile widened fractionally. "I knew Rakan was being targeted because my connection with him was cut off suddenly. We were communicating—I was advising him not to do anything reckless—when our link simply... ended. Severed completely."
As Sillad spoke, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. The crystalline trees started resonating with a deep, thrumming sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"I tried to enter Rakan's domain to investigate," Sillad continued, his tone remaining conversational despite the growing tension. "But I couldn't. The dimensional barriers were sealed from the inside. At that moment, I understood—he was under attack within his own realm. And I knew who the attacker must be."
The trembling intensified. Cracks began to appear in the frozen ground.
"So I prepared," Sillad said simply. "I hope you appreciate the effort."
Suddenly, the ground exploded.
A massive swarm of insects erupted from beneath the frozen surface—millions of them, each one the size of a fist, their chitinous bodies gleaming with toxic iridescence.
They formed a living wall that surrounded Ethan, Jean, and Anna completely, cutting off all visible escape routes.
Jean and Anna tensed immediately, their combat instincts screaming warnings.
From within the swarm, a throne emerged—constructed from the bodies of living insects that crawled over each other to create the structure. Sitting upon this revolting seat of chitin and venom was a figure that radiated wrongness on a fundamental level.
Querehsha, Monarch of Plagues and Queen of Insects.